Sri Lanka will be looking for the elusive test match and series win when they tour India for a Three Test, five ODI and Two T20 match series from November to December 2009. The team arrive in India on November 8th for the 55-day tour.
As a 17-year-old stripling in 2000, Gautam Gambhir's attacking strokeplay at the top of the order for Delhi set tongues wagging in India, not least in the ranks of the opposition. Fast-bowler bullies have paid the price for mistaking Gambhir's slight build and shy demeanour for signs of meekness. His compact footwork, high bat-speed and a brashly youthful approach befuddled bowlers more than once as cautious defence was replaced by the aerial route over point. His success took him close to the Indian side when Zimbabwe toured early in 2002. He had pasted successive double-centuries one for Delhi and another for the Board Presidents' XI against the tourists and seemed to be a shoo-in as Shiv Sunder Das's opening partner. But the selectors persisted instead with the band-aid solution of Deep Dasgupta. Gutted but determined, Gambhir soldiered on, pressing his case with particular urgency in the West Indies with the Indian A side early in 2003. When several senior players asked to be rested after the World Cup, Gambhir was summoned from the wings into the national squad for the TVS Cup in Dhaka. And then, the biggest reward: a call-up into India's Test squad for the fourth Test against Australia at Mumbai, in 2004-05.
The 2009 ICC World Twenty20 is a Twenty20 cricket tournament scheduled to take place in England in June of 2009. It will be the second World Twenty20 and will consist of 12 teams, contested by all Test-playing nations plus qualifiers (Ireland, Netherlands and Scotland)
The Champions Twenty20 League, formed with the official sanction of ICC will kick off in October 2008. Eight domestic teams from four nations will participate. Cricket Australia will partner the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket South Africa (CSA). The champion team in the Champions Twenty20 league will get US $5 million, which is the highest ever prize money for a cricket event.